


Speak Up

by AlexanderYamilton



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, I am insulted no one has written about her and Stephen, We all know that Peggy's name was Margarita, i'll add characters as the story progresses, taking matters into my own hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6608473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexanderYamilton/pseuds/AlexanderYamilton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tripping and almost knocking over a TA on the first day of a class you're not supposed to be in isn't quite as bad as it sounds. (Or: The modern Peggy and Stephen love story you never asked for, but are getting anyway)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fallin For Ya

The interesting thing about Fundamentals of Speech is that it’s a sophomore course that hasn’t seen a sophomore in years, and not for lack of interest. Whether it was a result of poor scheduling or lackluster performance on the part of past sophomores, or even just a result of a growing student body with no change in class size limits is anybody’s guess. Either way, over time, King’s College found a great number of its Criminology seniors struggling to gain access to a class that was meant to have been completed 2 years before.

That being said, the concept of a freshman finding his way into the class during his first semester would seem nothing short of a miracle, but 18 year old Stephen Van Rensselaer would soon find that his accidental placement in this course would not be the only stroke of good luck to come his way during the first few months of his college experience.

The next would come alongside the young woman he very nearly knocked over as he made his way through the classroom.

“Oh shit-” he cursed as his foot caught on the leg of a desk, sending him toward the floor, before a pair of hands grasped his shoulders, stopping the collision in the nick of time, a female voice speaking immediately after.

“First time with the new legs? I mean-shit," she cursed "...You okay?

Stephen straightened himself back up, fully intending to apologize as quickly as possible and continue in his search for a seat

“Yeah, I’m good. Sorr…” any plan to move on died along with the apology as his gaze locked with his rescuer’s, his eyes meeting a pair of brown ones, sparkling with what he assumed to be amusement. With that also came an unshakable feeling that he had seen this all before.

“It’s all right, I mean, shit happens…” she replied, giving an awkward smile.

They stood in this tableau for a few seconds more, until the girl swiftly removed her hands from his shoulders, leaving them to fidget at her sides, clearly just as unnerved by the situation has he was.

Another minute of embarrassed silence passed, eyes occasionally flickering in the other person’s direction before refocusing back to the floor or the wall, Stephen mentally cursing his awkwardness when an older woman walked past toward the front of the room.

“Right!” the girl said suddenly, causing them to both look straight at each other for the first time since the near-collision “That’s my cue, so, uh…” she patted his shoulder “try not to fall again?”

He nodded dumbly in response, still dazed by the unshakable sense of familiarity, and also by the fact that _shit, she’s really pretty._

With that final, though anxious, exchange she made her way to the front of the room, sharing a smile with another curly-haired girl as she sat down next to the main desk.

Stephen took his own seat right before the woman from before; whom he now realized was the professor, stood before the class, silencing the room instantly with a stern look.

As the room quieted, she smiled. “Thank you. As it is 8:30 in the morning, I expect this is the first class of the semester for all of you, so on behalf of the Criminology department, I welcome you all back. As you all should know, I am Professor Adams, and this is Fundamentals of Speech. If this is not where you are meant to be, then I suggest you see yourself out. Along with me this semester, I have two of my best Speech students from the past year; Miss Dolley Payne,” the curly-haired girl stood and grinned “is a natural-born speaker, and was a great help to her peers in the past, which I have no doubt she will transfer to her work here.” Dolley sat down, nudging her companion to stand

“The other had a bit of a rough start, as many of you will, but no student has ever improved quite as much in such a short time as she had. That being said, any issue you may have with nerves or the like can be brought to Miss Margarita Schuyler.”

Margarita waved, and Stephen froze, eyes widened in recognition, whispering “ _Schuyler..._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter is short, I know. I'm hoping to make future chapters longer, I just felt like this was a comfortable place to stop. For those disappointed about the lack of Alexander, Eliza, and Angelica, I plead with you to hang on with me. They'll be here soon, along with the actual plot.  
> Either way, I hope you enjoyed today's chapter, based a moment from my own life where I too had tripped on my first day and almost knocked the TA over on my way down. (Our boy Stephen's experience ends much better than mine, luckily for him)


	2. I Fell Then, Too (Chapter 1 1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we take a trip back in time before continuing with the story; jokes are explained and a history lesson ensues in the notes

_Eleven Years Earlier_

_Thwack_

“Phillip!” The little boy giggled, dropping the offending pool noodle, and ran off, followed by his sister who quickly picked him up, the two now face to face. “Phillip Jeremiah, you do _not_ hit our guests. Get back there and apologize.”

“B-but, ‘Liza, it’s my _birthday_ ,” he complained

“It’s okay, Elizabeth,” Stephen said. “He’s only little; Libby does it all the time.” And she did; Stephen’s little sister, also named Elizabeth, was the same age as the Schuylers’ Phillip, and _loved_ throwing her toys at her brothers.

“No, no, he needs to learn,” she insisted, walking over with Phillip in her arms. “PJ, say you’re sorry.”

The younger boy pouted, but mumbled out a “ ‘m sorry, Stephen…”

Stephen smiled; Phillip _was_ pretty cute. “I forgive you. Just listen to Elizabeth from now on”

He nodded, eager to escape, which pleased his sister enough to put him down, allowing him to run back toward his preschool friends in the shallow end of the pool.

Stephen shook his head. He might be younger than most of the people at the party, but he wasn’t stupid; while Phillip did apologize, he also knew that he’d just come back and start whacking people with the noodle when his sister wasn’t looking.

“You know,” Elizabeth said after a moment, “you can just call me Eliza. Everyone does.”

Shrugging, Stephen replied that he was “just trying to be polite,” promising to remember for next time.

Satisfied, Eliza walked away to rejoin the party, while Stephen made a point to do the exact opposite, walking toward the unoccupied canopy tent on the other side of the pool instead.

The shade provided was a great relief, and Stephen had eyes only for a chair in the corner, going to sit down until-

“Hey, Stephen.”

Stephen screamed, tripping over the chair in question as his head whipped around to find the source of the voice.

He felt a sharp tug as the mystery person stopped his fall, grabbing him by the back of his shirt. A careful glace backwards revealed that the person was, thankfully, one that he knew.

“Oh, hi Margarita,” he said, voice strained, still recovering from the scare He straightened himself back up once she released his shirt, taking the seat beside her at the table.

She smiled, amused. “First time with the new legs, huh?”

Stephen blinked, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “What?”

The older girl laughed sheepishly. “To be honest, I’m not too sure either. Dad says it a lot when PJ trips over stuff. It kinda became a family joke, and we all started saying it. Guess it’s not really that funny, is it?”

“No, not really,” he agreed, looking down before clarifying “you just scared me. I didn’t see you were in here.”

She nodded in understanding, turning her attention back to the notebook in front of her. “Yeah, I tend to have that effect on people.” Picking up her pencil, she continued with whatever it was, _drawing, maybe?_ that Stephen had interrupted before. “So, why’re you hiding from the rest of the party,” she asked, not looking up.

Without thinking he countered, “Why are you?” he bit his lip, embarrassed at his outburst. “I mean, it’s your brother’s birthday party”

“It’s too loud with all those little kids around. It makes it hard to focus.” She gestured to what she was working on.

“Yeah. They’re all half my age and way too noisy.”

She laughed, glancing up from her notebook to look at him. “You say that like you’re so much older.”

“I am,” he said defensively, crossing his arms. “They’re all 4; they’re pretty much babies.”

“Of course,” she responded, nodding in understanding. “But you still haven’t told me why you’re hiding here with me.”

“Oh.” Stephen blinked. “Phillip kept hitting me with a pool noodle. Elizabeth told him to stop, but I didn’t wanna stay ‘cause I know he was gonna do it again when she wasn’t looking.” Margarita stared at him, making him realize the need to clarify “Like, your family’s Phillip and Elizabeth. Not mine.”

“Gotcha. Sorry about him, by the way. He’s just doing that kind of stuff and we don’t know how to get him to cut it out. He was hitting Angie with pillows just this morning. It’s been driving her _nuts._ ”

“Yeah, Libby does the same thing. She throws bouncy balls at me all the time.”

Margarita shook her head. “Must be a 4 year-old thing.”

Stephen rolled his eyes, mumbling “don’t remember doing that when _I_ was 4…”

“Oh, you did too. My mom has the pictures of me and Eliza covered in frosting from when you decided to shove cake in our faces at Angie’s ‘welcome home’ party to prove it”

His eyes widened as he started to remember the incident, but before he was able to respond, a shout of “Kids! Time for cake!” had interrupted him.

“We should go before all the cake is gone.”

They stood and began the walk back to rejoin the party in silence until the pencil had slipped out of Margarita’s notebook; both reached to grab it, heads clucking on the way down. “

Margarita let out a hiss of pain, though recovering quickly and picking up the pencil as Stephen mumbled “Shit, that hurt,” rubbing his now-sore forehead.

Freezing as he realized what he’d said, he looked at his companion in horror. “Don’t tell my mom I said a bad word,” he pleaded, trying to fight the tears starting to fill his eyes.

Margarita smiled and ruffled his hair. “No worries. I won’t tell on you.”

Stephen sighed, relieved. “Thank you, Margarita.”

She wrinkled her nose “Please, don’t call me Margarita. It’s just Peggy.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The rest of the walk went without incident, and before long, they were back, joining the crowd around the cake table.

Managing to maneuver her way to the front, Peggy soon emerged with two plates of cake, a satisfied grin on her face.

Taking his plate, Stephen felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around; tensing when he realized it belonged to his mother.

“Where have you been,” she asked, frowning. “I have been looking for you for the past hour.”

Casting a nervous glance over his mother’s shoulder at Peggy, who was searching for a place to sit, he responded, “I w-was on the other side of the yard. Um…it was too loud over here, so I went to go sit under that tent with Peggy-“

“That’s Margarita to you, young man,” she interrupted, regarding him sternly. “Don’t be rude.”

“R-Right, sorry,” he apologized, not quite meeting her eyes, hands fidgeting at his sides. “I, um, I was with Margarita.”

She nodded. “That’s fine. Just don’t make a habit of disappearing like that. Now, eat that quickly,” she gestured at the cake. “We have to leave soon.”

“Okay, Mom,” he whispered as she turned on her heel, walking away. Cake in hand, Stephen moved to find Peggy, who had saved him the seat beside her.

“You don’t always have to listen to her, y’know,” she said after a minute of his silence. “If she’s not around, she can’t stop you from calling people by their nicknames.“

“Yeah, I guess,” he conceded softly, idly poking the cake in front of him with his fork, and stealing glances at the big-eyed cat she was drawing between bites of her own cake.

He put his fork down, cake otherwise untouched. “I have to go; mom wants to go home. Bye, Margarita.”

She frowned, but said “See ya, Stephen,” disappointment clear in her eyes.

He felt bad, and he wanted to apologize, but disobeying his mother would probably feel a lot worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it. Some of this might seem random or unnecessarily detailed, but I swear to you, it's relevant. And while I'm not totally up on how 8 year olds speak, I do have a 7 year old sister who's about as eloquent as Stephen is here, sooo ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> So, as luck would have it, the Rensselaers didn't have much of a concept of originality when naming their children; Stephen was named after his father, and then his only two siblings are Phillip and Elizabeth, both names that appear all over the Schuyler family tree. That being said, historically speaking, there were a /lot/ of Schuyler children. 11 to be exact, though only 8 actually lived to adulthood. One of them was named Rensselaer. Like, Rensselaer Schuyler. That's just two last names.   
> So, throughout the course of this story, you'll not only see the Schuyler Sisters we know and love, Alexander, and John Church, but you'll also get to meet Phillip and Elizabeth Rensselaer and the other Schuylers: Phillip Jeremiah, John Bradstreet, Rensselaer, Cornelia, Cortlandt (who I saved from his fate of dying at a few months old; you're welcome) and Catherine. (The other two Schuylers were another John Bradstreet and Cornelia who had died pretty early on. Still don't personally understand the whole 'name the new baby after the last one of the same gender who died' thing, but that's the way things were done back then.)  
> In case any of you knew this and were curious: Historically, Peggy and Stephen were distant cousins through the Livingston sides of their families, and Elizabeth had also married John Bradstreet Schuyler. Married cousins everywhere. They are not cousins in this modern universe, so please don't fret. Their families are just very close friends.   
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and the impromptu history class. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled Chapter 2 around sometime next week once I'm done with my finals. Thank you all so much for reading. Love you lots!


End file.
